Commercial Saturation Diver
Chris Lemons has been a commercial diver for over 18 years, and currently specialises in deep sea saturation diving. He moves beyond a miracle and communicates how teamwork, preparation, training, procedures, drills and practice played a huge role in his recovery and survival.
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Chris Lemons has been a commercial diver for over 18 years, and currently specialises in deep sea saturation diving, operating almost exclusively in the oil and gas industry.
This highly specialised form of diving involves living in the claustrophobic confines of a decompression chamber for up to 28 days at a time, commuting daily to the sea-bed in a diving bell, and working at depths of up to 900 feet for 6 hours at a time.
In September of 2012, a freak failure of the dynamic posi9oning system of the vessel he was working under, resulted in the umbilical which provides him with breathing gas, light and heat being severed completely. He was left on the seabed, in complete darkness 300 feet below the surface, with only the 5 minutes of breathing gas he carried in the emergency tanks on his back, and no way to protect himself from the freezing temperatures.
It took his heroic rescuers over 40 minutes to come back and fetch him, and his miraculous survival story has based experts ever since. His extraordinary story was subsequently immortalised in the hit NeQlix/BBC documentary ‘Last Breath,’ a version of which is currently being developed into a Hollywood movie starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole.
Chris was born in Edinburgh, raised in Cambridge, and now lives in the South of France with his partner and two daughters.
Chris is happy to tailor his address to align with your specific theme or requirements, which may include focusing on the safety aspect and lessons learned from the accident, the human and emotional elements involved, or a more generic oversight of the offshore and saturation diving world.
Chris can offer you an insight into the relatively unknown world of saturation Diving, where those involved spend weeks on end confined to a compression chamber, whilst being lowered each day in a diving bell to the murky depths of the ocean floor to do their work.
He will also talk you through the lead up to that fateful day in 2012 and give you a very personal account of his thoughts and actions when he was left stranded 300 feet down in the icy darkness with no heat, no light and only 5 minutes of gas left to breathe, with his rescuers over 40 minutes away from being able to get to him.
Chris offers an acute, honest and emotional testimony of what goes through one’s mind when seemingly counting down the minutes to death, and how surprising and revealing one’s response to such a situation can be.
He also tentatively explores how staring death in the face can focus the mind on life, as well as force you to contemplate the very finite nature of time here on earth. Chris also discusses the practical and physiological reasons which may have contributed to his miraculous survival.
He moves beyond the miracle and communicates how teamwork, preparation, training, procedures, drills and practice played a huge role in his recovery and survival, and the way in which these are implemented can benefit your sphere of work or life.
Chris is also delighted to engage in question and answer sessions on any of the subjects related above.
Chris can discuss how strong leadership plays a vital role in all spheres of the
work he does. From a robust chain of command, right through to individual
leadership whilst working on the ocean floors, Chris is able to share how
clear-cut but objective governance and accountability is key to the safe and
efficient running of complicated and inherently dangerous offshore subsea
operations. He can also describe how this same clear minded and well-
rehearsed structure of leadership played a pivotal role in saving his life, and
how you can use these methods to enhance the organisational culture within
your own place of work.
What happened to Chris is the very definition of a crisis, not only to him
personally, but to his crewmates and the reputation of the company he was
working for. Chris can discuss how detailed preparation, effective leadership,
an effective chain of command, and proper training and drills allowed the
team around him to remain calm under extreme pressure and fulfil the
miraculous rescue which saved his life.
Chris works in a world where procedures, checklists, training and drills are
not just essential to the work he performs, but to the preservation of life
itself. He can communicate how these are used to allow him and his
colleagues to safely work and live in the dangerous environments of
compression chambers and the deep sea, but also how they played an
essential role in allowing his crew mates to act with the calm assurance
needed to pull him back from the brink of death.
Chris is able to discuss how, despite the inherent dangers involved with
working in such an extreme environment, the risks are calculated and
managed to make them acceptable. Identifying hazards, dynamic risk
assessments and management of change are fundamental in making what
could potentially be the most dangerous job on the planet, into what is
arguably the safest form of diving in the world. Chris can explain how this is
implemented, and how the lessons learned can apply to your sphere of work
or life.
Following Chris’ life-threatening incident, which would have profound
professional and personal implications for all involved had the rescue not
been affected, it was essential that a far reaching and detailed investigation
be conducted. Chris can recount the processes that the company went
through to ensure that this was not only completed in as comprehensive
manner as possible, but also in a fashion that was sensitive to the needs of
those involved, as well as managing and protecting the public image of the
company. This all culminated in a successful return to work just three weeks
later, with the company using the incident as an industry wide learning tool
and success story.
The very nature of Chris’ work requires a character and mindset that is
resilient and attuned to overcoming adversity. The ocean floors are possibly
the most inhospitable working environments that this world has to offer, and
simply to commute there on a daily basis requires Chris and the team to
overcome numerous obstacles of both practical and psychological nature.
Chris can discuss how this resilience has been forged not only through
adversity, but by fostering a culture and mentality amongst the team which
allows them to problem solve quickly and calmly in difficult situations. He
can also describe how this resilience enabled the team to overcome extreme
pressure and the unknown to successfully carry out his rescue, and also to
return to work just three weeks later, and how this same mindset of
resilience can be applied to your sphere of work.
Both Chris’ work, and his miraculous survival, rely heavily on the strength of
the teams he works within. From the three-man unit that ventures to the
depths for its working days, to the hundreds of colleagues supporting that
unit, above, onboard the vessel and ashore, their successes and failures are
very much defined by their ability to work cohesively as a team. Saturation
diving is a global enterprise that draws a broad range of characters together
from a wide range of ethnic, cultural and educational backgrounds. Chris can
discuss how these diverse teams are brought together to work towards their
very singular goals, and how this diversity works in their favour when
channelled and managed effectively. He will also relate how cohesive
teamwork played a crucial role in saving his life, when the crew aboard the
vessel came together to defy the overwhelming odds and extricate him from
a seemingly impossible situation.
Chris’ extraordinary brush with death gave him an opportunity to
contemplate his own, seemingly imminent, mortality. He is able to share
how in accepting the inevitability of his own death in those final conscious
minutes on the seabed, he was able to find a state of calm and reflect on
what was most important in his life. The miracle of his subsequent survival
has given him an acute sense of what death really means, and he is able
reflect with audiences on how these insights are as important in life, as they
were when facing death.
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Boy did Chris deliver! His presentation was funny, engaging and deeply touching.
Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars.
His humble delivery, sense of humour and lived experience of the challenges of working in a remote and hazardous environment really resonated with our audience.
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars.
Chris took the audience of ~160 through the story of that fateful night in a clear manner, using clips from the Netflix documentary to emphasise the story at certain points.
Rated 4.4 out of 5 stars.
Hear him if you dare!
Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Chris is a remarkably powerful speaker with a tremendously valuable story.
Rated 4.2 out of 5 stars.
Chris Lemons discusses his remarkable survival and how it continues to perplex doctors to this day. The popular Netflix/BBC documentary, “Last Breath”, uses the raw footage from this accident, moving audiences globally.
Chris Lemons was a saturation diver for 10 years working on oil fields on the North Sea floor. Now, Lemons is a supervisor, who gives instructions to divers and is responsible for keeping them alive. In 2012, Lemons almost died on the sea floor in an accident, and was rescued over 30 minutes later.
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